The administrative duties of the United States expanded rapidly after the Spanish War. The extension of scientific functions beginning in the eighties continued until the volume of work forced the creation of new offices. Federal civil employees numbered 107,000 in 1880, 166,000 in 1890, 256,000 in 1900, and 384,000 in 1910. Among the newer scientific activities was included that of the reclamation of the arid or semi-arid lands of the Southwest.
The region between the Missouri River and the Sierra Nevada had been regarded as uninhabitable since the days of Pike. Known as the "American Desert," it figured in the atlases as a place of sand and aridity, and became the home chosen for the Indian tribes between 1825 and 1840. Under the influence of migration to Oregon and California the real character of the Far West became known, but not until the continental railways were finished did many inhabitants enter it. In 1889 and 1890 the "Omnibus" States were admitted, embracing all the northwest half of the old desert. Utah followed in 1896. Arizona and New Mexico and Oklahoma developed rapidly after 1890 and were all demanding statehood in 1902.
The advance of population into the Far West revealed the existence of large areas in which an abundant agriculture could be produced through irrigation. Private means were inadequate for this and the land laws discouraged it. A demand for federal reclamation appeared in the eighties. In 1889 a survey of available sites for reservoirs was made by government engineers, and in 1902 Roosevelt coöperated with the Far-Western Congressmen in securing the passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act. By this bill the proceeds of land sales in the arid States became a fund to be used by the reclamation service for the construction of great public irrigation works. In the succeeding years dams, tunnels, and ditches were undertaken that were rivaled in magnitude only by the railroad tunnels at New York and the excavations at Panama.
The aggressive assurance with which the Roosevelt Administration handled the problems of diplomacy and administration created for the President a wide and unusual popularity, which was strongest in the West. Many critics, also, were created, who distrusted personal influence when injected into government, and who doubted the solidity of Roosevelt's judgment. Personal altercations, in which the President was often the aggressor, were numerous. Among professional politicians dislike was mingled with fear because the President had established personal relations immediately with their constituents. Under President McKinley the state delegations in Congress had controlled the appointive federal offices of their States, and had been secure in their personal standing; under Roosevelt their control of appointments was less secure. When matters of legislation were taken up, this dissatisfaction among members of Congress was a serious obstacle to the attainment of constructive laws.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
After the Spanish War the secondary materials for the history of the United States become fragmentary and unsatisfactory. Peck, Andrews, and J.H. Latané, America as a World Power, 1897-1907 (in The American Nation, vol. 25, 1907), are the best general guides. The facts of campaigns are contained in E. Stanwood's second volume,—History of the Presidency from 1897 to 1909 (1912, with an appendix containing the platforms of 1912), but the Annual Cyclopædia stopped publication after 1902, and left no good successor. The various year-books should be consulted, and the files of the magazines, which steadily improve in historical value: Nation, Harper's Weekly, Collier's Weekly, Independent, Outlook, Literary Digest, and the Review of Reviews. Articles in these and other periodicals, dealing with episodes occurring after 1898, may be reached through Poole's Indexes. The American Journal of International Law and the American Political Science Review are typical of the new technical periodicals. Extensive contributions to the history of international arbitration have been made by F.W. Holls, J.B. Scott, and W.I. Hull. There is, of course, no critical biography of Theodore Roosevelt, although there are numerous panegyrics by F.E. Leupp, J.A. Riis, J. Morgan, and others, and some autobiographical papers which appeared first in the Outlook (1913), and later as Fifty Years of My Life (1913). The later Messages of McKinley and those of his successors are scattered among the government documents, which are to be found in many libraries. The Second Battle (1900), by W.J. Bryan, is autobiographic, as is A.E. Stevenson, Something of Men I Have Known (1909).
CHAPTER XVIII
The panic of 1893 ended the first period of the trust problem. The preceding years had been years of formation and experiment. They had been accompanied by an increasing popular distaste for combinations of capital and a growing activity in the organization of labor. The Sherman Law of 1890 had temporarily quieted the anti-trust movement, while economic depression had checked the extravagance of speculation that had been prevalent everywhere. During the years of depression attention was shifted to tariff and currency, but a new era began with the recurrence of prosperity about 1897.